Does anybody still believe in the Middle East Peace Process? Nineteen
years after Oslo and thirteen years after a final settlement was
supposed to be reached, prospects for a two-state solution are as dim
as ever. The international community mechanically goes through the
motions, with as little energy as conviction. The parties most
directly concerned, the Israeli and Palestinian people, appear long
ago to have lost hope. Substantive gaps are wide, and it has become a
challenge to get the sides in the same room. The bad news is the U.S.
presidential campaign, Arab Spring, Israel’s focus on Iran and
European financial woes portend a peacemaking hiatus. The good news
is such a hiatus is badly needed. The expected diplomatic lull is a
chance to reconsider basic pillars of the process – not to discard
the two-state solution, for no other option can possibly attract
mutual assent; nor to give up on negotiations, for no outcome will be
imposed from outside. But to incorporate new issues and
constituencies; rethink Palestinian strategy to alter the balance of
power; and put in place a more effective international architecture.

For all the scepticism surrounding the ways of the past, breaking
with them will not come easily. Few may still believe in the peace
process, but many still see significant utility in it. Ongoing
negotiations help Washington manage its relations with the Arab world
and to compensate for close ties to Israel with ostensible efforts to
meet Palestinian aspirations. Europeans have found a role,
bankrolling the Palestinian Authority and, via the Quartet, earning a
seat at one of the most prestigious diplomatic tables – a
satisfaction they share with Russia and the UN Secretary-General.
Peace talks are highly useful to Israel for deflecting international
criticism and pressure.

Palestinians suffer most from the status quo, yet even they stand to
lose if the comatose process finally were pronounced dead. The
Palestinian Authority (PA) might collapse and with it the economic
and political benefits it generates as well as the assistance it
attracts. For the Palestinian elite, the peace process has meant
relative comfort in the West Bank as well as constant, high-level
diplomatic attention. Without negotiations, Fatah would lose much of
what has come to be seen as its raison d’être and would be even more
exposed to Hamas’s criticism.

But the reason most often cited for maintaining the existing peace
process is the conviction that halting it risks creating a vacuum
that would be filled with despair and chaos. The end result is that
the peace process, for all its acknowledged shortcomings, over time
has become a collective addiction that serves all manner of needs,
reaching an agreement no longer being the main one. And so the
illusion continues, for that largely is what it is.

More than any others, Palestinians have become aware of this trap, so
have been the first to tinker with different approaches. But tinker
is the appropriate term: their leadership, in its quest to reshuffle
the deck, has flitted from one idea to another and pursued tracks
simultaneously without fully thinking through the alternatives or
committing to a single one. For a time, it seemed that President Mah­
moud Abbas’s September 2011 speech at the UN General Assembly –
resolute and assertive – might presage a momentous shift in strategy.
But after the Security Council buried Palestine’s application for UN
membership in committee, the logical follow-up – an effort to gain
support for statehood at the General Assembly – was ignored. After
admittance to one UN agency, the leadership froze further efforts.
After refusing negotiations unless Israel froze settlements and
without clear terms of reference, Abbas consented to talks. After
threatening to dissolve the PA, central figures waved off the idea
and declared the PA a strategic asset. After reaching a
reconciliation agreement with Hamas, the two parties reverted to
bickering.

One can fault the Palestinian leadership for lack of vision, yet
there is good reason for its irresoluteness. Whatever it chooses to
do would carry a potentially heavy price and at best uncertain gain.
Negotiations are viewed by a majority of Palestinians as a fool’s
errand, so a decision to resume without fulfilment of Abbas’s demands
(settlement freeze and agreed terms of reference) could be costly for
his movement’s future. His hesitation is all the stronger now that he
has persuaded himself that Prime Minister Netanyahu’s positions are
incompatible with a two-state solution. A decisive Palestinian move
at the UN (whether at the General Assembly or in seeking agency
membership) likely would prompt a cut-off in U.S. aid and suspension
of tax clearance revenue transfers by Israel. A joint government with
Hamas could trigger similar consequences without assurance that
elections could be held or territorial unity between the West Bank
and Gaza restored. Getting rid of the PA could backfire badly,
leaving many public employees and their families penniless while also
leading to painful Israeli counter-measures.

The trouble with all these domestic and international justifications
for not rocking the boat is that they are less and less convincing
and that perpetuating the status quo is not cost-free. A process that
is turning in circles undermines the credibility of all its
advocates. It cannot effectively shelter the U.S. from criticism or
Israel from condemnation. Europe can fund a PA whose expiration date
has passed only for so long. The Palestinian leadership is facing
ever sharpening questioning of its approach. Most of all, the idea
that to end the existing process would create a dangerous vacuum
wildly exaggerates the process’s remaining credibility and thus
assumes it still serves as a substitute for a vacuum – when in
reality it widely is considered vacuous itself.

Finding an alternative approach is no mean feat. Contrary to what
some say, or hope, it is not a one-state solution – which is
championed, in very different versions, by elements of both the
Israeli and Palestinian political spectrums. A one-state reality
already is in place, but as a solution it almost certainly would face
insurmountable challenges – beginning with the fact that it is
fiercely opposed by a vast majority of Jewish Israelis, who view it
as antithetical to their basic aspiration. By the same token, even
though alternatives to the current process should be pursued, a
solution ultimately will be found only through negotiations.

What should be explored is a novel approach to a negotiated two-state
solution that seeks to heighten incentives for reaching a deal and
disincentives for sticking with the status quo, while offering a
different type of third-party mediation. In this spirit, four
traditionally neglected areas ought to be addressed:

New issues. At the core of the Oslo process was the notion that a
peace agreement would need to deal with issues emanating from the
1967 War – the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza – as opposed to
those that arose in 1948 from the establishment of Israel, the trauma
of the accompanying war and the displacement of the vast majority of
Palestinians. But if that logic was ever persuasive, it no longer is.
On one side, the character of the State of Israel; recognition of
Jewish history; regional security concerns extending beyond the
Jordan River; and the connection with the entire Land of Israel have
been pushed to the fore. On the other, the issue of the right of
return and the Nakba (the “catastrophe” that befell Palestinians in
1948); the place of the Arab minority in Israel; and, more broadly,
the Palestinian connection to Historic Palestine have become more
prominent. Within Jewish and Muslim communities alike, religion has
become more prevalent in political discussions, and its influence on
peacemaking looms larger than before.

As difficult as it is to imagine a solution that addresses these
issues, it is harder still to imagine one that does not. If the two
sides are to be induced to reach agreement, such matters almost
certainly need to be tackled. Israelis and Palestinians, rather than
refusing to deal with the others’ core concerns, both might use them
as a springboard to address their own.

New constituencies. The process for most of the past two decades has
been led by a relatively narrow array of actors. But the interests of
those who have been excluded resonate deeply with their respective
mainstreams. In Israel, this includes the Right, both religious and
national, as well as settlers. Among Palestinians, it includes
Islamists, Palestinian citizens of Israel and the diaspora. That
needs to be rectified. A proposed deal that is attractive to new
constituencies would minimise opposition and could attract support
from unexpected quarters.

New Palestinian strategy. The Palestinian leadership has tested
various waters but is apprehensive about taking the plunge. That
approach appears less sustainable by the day, eroding the
leadership’s credibility and international patience. Rather than ad-
hoc, shifting tactical moves, the entire Palestinian national
movement needs to think seriously through its various options –
including reconciliation, internationalisation, popular resistance
and fate of the PA – and decide whether it is prepared to pay the
costs for pursuing them fully. If the answer is “no”, then it would
be better to stop the loose talk that has been surrounding them of
late.

New international architecture. Palestinian recourse to the UN is a
symptom, at base, of international failure to lead and provide
effective mediation. The body responsible for doing so, the Quartet,
has delivered precious little since its 2002 inception; by creating
an international forum whose survival depends on perpetuation of the
process and whose mode of operation entails silencing individual
voices in favour of a mushy, lowest-common-denominator consensus, it
arguably has done more harm than good. Whether the body should be
entirely disbanded or restructured – and if so, how – is a question
with which the international community needs to grapple. Whatever the
form, it ought to address the profound changes taking place in the
Middle East, the opportunities they present and the risks they pose.